


the way her heart has become a stone

by lady_peony



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Gen, Mostly Gen, Slice of Life, check notes for warnings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-18
Updated: 2020-02-18
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:55:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22785202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lady_peony/pseuds/lady_peony
Summary: She has nothing to call her own, nothing that belongs solely to her but her name.Or: an account of gifts that Yennefer receives over the years.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, Istredd/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg
Comments: 13
Kudos: 57





	the way her heart has become a stone

**Author's Note:**

> +pairings listed are really only mentioned briefly in this fic  
> +mostly based on tv canon, perhaps with one or two details thrown in from the book series  
> \+ more detailed warnings of the fic: mentioned canon-typical violence, brief scene of animal death, nonexplicit mention of a canon suicide attempt, mentioned off-screen stalking of a minor character

i.

( _she has nothing to call her own, nothing that belongs solely to her but her name; and even that, given only out of a reluctant duty, the barest scraps of familial feeling_ )

A sensation of cold needles stabbed up her thighs. Yennefer stopped, leaned herself against the post of a nearby fence to rest. While her legs felt numb, her side and her right shoulder burned.

The bundled wood she had gathered rested on the ground, standing upright and balanced to keep most of it from the damp. 

Her mother had pushed her out of the house before she had even joined her siblings for breakfast. She had been told to go out to fetch more wood for the fire, with whispered instructions not to come back too quickly. Her father had a meeting set for that morning in their house, with someone who might wish to take on her eldest brother for some apprenticeship or another.

That they didn't want Yennefer to get in the way while the guest was there went unspoken but understood.

Yennefer had only managed to snatch half a loaf of rye bread from the table to stave the worst of her hunger pangs before heading off. She was thankful too, that she had remembered to hide an onion from supper in her apron pocket the day before.

A gust of wind swooped down, cutting as easily through her dress as a knife through butter. The sky overhead was a grimy gray, a resentful promise of future rain.

A scream rippled into the air.

Yennefer looked up.

On the other side of the fence she had been leaning on, sounds of swearing came from two men. One carried something in his hands, something heavy and metallic. A tool, though what kind she couldn't see from this distance. The other waved their arms, jumping back as a single hoof lashed out at him.

That was the miller's horse. It was a common enough sight around their village, pulling the miller's cart to make deliveries or travelling to markets in the next town over. A short stocky mare, with the light gray coat and dark mane typical of its kind. 

Her eyes, normally gentle and mild-mannered, were now blindfolded with a strip of cloth.

Yennefer wasn't the only one who had heard the noise. Some of the townsfolk, walking past, had stopped by to look at the commotion. Nothing much happened in the village; any kind of fuss was worthy food for gossip.

"Poor thing," a young dairy maid to her right said. "To have broken its leg just this morning. They say the miller's boy was careless, had loaded too much on the cart for the mare to bear." 

Another scream pierced the air. A swell of clamoring shouts, a thud.

Yennefer looked again.

One of the men crouched, pulled the cloth away from the mare's head.

A glassy eye stared up at Yennefer, dark and unblinking. The mare was dead.

Yennefer turned away, hobbled away from the crowd with her bundle of wood as quickly as she dared, before any of the crueler children saw her and thought of pulling any pranks on her for their amusement.  
  


* * *

  
ii.

( _a glass bottle, stoppered with a cork; to the eye, it holds nothing but air; a fingernail taps against the curve of glass and something flickers beneath the surface, a momentary memory of the heat and fury of a storm_ )

You're lucky to be alive, Tissaia said to her once, her voice thin and cool as silver.

If I survive this, Yennefer had thought then, a cold burning coal in her chest, cold gray stone beneath her hands, it will be because of me. If I have to suffer, it will be because of me. Because I choose to.

(You are Yennefer of Vengerberg, and your eyes are glass. You see everything, see through everyone. Their hopes, their desires, their fears, their petty dreams. 

She sees them, watches them, sees both welcome and unwelcome things. But she is going too far ahead; this all comes later, years and years later.)

Yennefer hates, and is hated at the Academy.

It is different, from the hatred she had felt in Vengerberg, the cold snickers and cold eyes that followed her then.

She hates that Tissaia saved her. Hates her own slow, creeping progress at lessons, the dullness of their lecturers.

Nevertheless. 

The other girls may titter behind their hands when she is corrected in lessons, but Yennefer does the same to them. Their hostility comes from envy, from seeing competition. From seeing Yennefer as someone to measure themselves against. They don't watch her with the hostility that comes from seeing her as nothing.

After lessons, they dine together, fall to sleep together in the same dorms in the dark. They whisper their stories to each other, discover which of them were the ones who were an unwanted mouth to feed, the ones who were abandoned by their fiances out of fear of their powers. 

None of them speak about love.

It's a strange camaraderie. They learn when Sabrina first begins her monthly bleeding, mutter begrudging congratulations when Yennefer is the first to master a particularly tricky incantation. True, they may sometimes sneer at each other's mistakes—may cut each other with their own pride—and despite it all, Yennefer knows that they know that she has as much a right as them to be here. 

They have no other place now, but the walls of Aretuza. And after—after—who can tell?

* * *

  
iii.

( _a small book, tucked carefully on a shelf between bundles of dried basil and dandelion roots; old pages bound in a handsome leather cover, dyed wine-red; inside are inked words of fairytales, curls of fantastic illustrations in ultramarine, carmine, verdigris green, the colors somehow still as bright and unfaded as the day they were drawn_ )

It had been the first gift Istredd had ever given her. Across the pages swam swans and geese, princesses and peasants, foolish kings and wise knaves. A collection of folktales and fables, Istredd had said, recorded by a friend of his from a university from his travels.

"Think of it as a welcome present," he had said, "for surviving a year of Aretuza." His lashes brushed against Yennefer's skin as she kissed the edge of his smile.

When he had pressed the book to her, folding his palms over her fingers, his touch was warm. He had always been warm. 

If she had not been half as discontented, half as restless, Yennefer fancies she might have been happy with him. If not happiness, then something close enough.

Istredd of the gentle smile, Istredd with his kind eyes. Kind, even when he had betrayed her.

A foul turn for foul play. She had betrayed him too. 

He was hurt by that the time they fought, their first and last fight before she had left him, left Aretuza. Yennefer had scoffed at it. Should she have been the only one injured? The only one made a fool?

But still, at the very least she can acknowledge this. Even when he was angry with her, Yennefer had never been frightened of him. He had never tried to be cruel to her, with premeditated malice.

She did love him, once upon a time. Perhaps for someone as obsessed with ruins as he was, it was inevitable for their bond to become as such.

* * *

iv.

( _tiny bottles and colored vials mingle on a table, clustered like a handful of odd-blooming flowers against dark wood; one is half-opened, a tiny brush besides it dusted with red_ )

"It's for you."

"And why, pray tell," Yennefer said, raising an eyebrow as she looked down into the open pouch, "are you giving me a bag of dead bugs?"

"The merchant who sold this said it was the last of their supply that day. Said it was supposed to be something you could use, Yen." 

He had already divested himself of his cloak and his swords, which he had rested by the entrance of the room. His face is clean, no splatter of blood or streaks of mud expected from the rainy woods of the season. No dark circles under his eyes, no sharpened gauntness to his jaw. He must have already rested and fed at an inn recently, had possessed the means to do so.

Yennefer makes a humming sound, then tipped her head to the side, smirking slightly. "What do you think I could even use this for, Geralt?"

Oh, she already knows. She's curious though, if he does.

Geralt narrowed his eyes, moved swiftly up to her. He raised a hand slowly to tip up her chin, his fingertips then trailing up the side of her cheek to stop at about her ear.

She gazed back at him, his golden eyes watching her. She has to keep her chin tilted back to match his stare.

A gentle pressure then, as his thumb stroked lightly over her eyelid, at a spot just above her eyelashes.

"Hm. It doesn't come off," he said. "The bag—she said it was for coloring. Or it could be made into colors. For your eye powders and such."

"Oh? You are a man of many talents. I wouldn't have expected Geralt of Rivia to know such things." Yennefer raised a hand to tug at a tendril of Geralt's hair, the tip of it long enough to rest just above his collarbone. "And so, what, do you believe these eye powders make me more or less beautiful? You think red would be the best color that suits me?"

Geralt lets out a sigh, and she feels the rise and fall of it against her palm and her arm, pressed closely against him. "Doesn't matter what I think. If you like it, then keep it. If you don't, do whatever you want with it."

Typical of him, to cut past her questions to lay something out so simply. Geralt is unusual in this.

She has bedded courtiers and knights and kings, at her own whims and for her own amusement. They would play along with her flirtations, bring her flowers or jewels or trinkets as expected in the usual rhythms. Compliment her on her cleverness and power and beauty, as expected. 

Not all of her affairs had been wisely chosen, perhaps, but there was none who would voice a word of disapproval.

The Chapter would not dare to cast stones at anyone's affairs, least of all hers. Venomous as vipers and proud as cats themselves, and all with their own complicated entanglements. With lifetimes that run for centuries, who hasn't made an unwise choice in bed partners once or twice?

Geralt comes and goes like the wind before her eyes, and she does the same with him. It's a satisfactory arrangement. He's neither a foolish conversationalist, nor a terrible lover, so she'll keep him for a spell.

She takes the open bag from his hand, and sets it down on the table behind her. "As long as you are here, Geralt, we might as well converse in a more comfortable setting." 

She pulled his hand with hers as she moves to her bed, and he follows.

He stayed the night, but no longer than that. 

(You are Yennefer of Vengerberg, and your tongue is lightning. You speak the instant the words slip through your mind, goads and barbs and repartee swelling up as easily as magic does to your fingertips.)

You still do not know the words to ask him to stay, or if you have the right words to answer if he ever unlocks the question from his taciturn tongue.

* * *

v. 

( _a thick cloak draped on a peg on a wall, ink-black and shadow-soft; the tassels that tie the hood together are dyed a light silver; once worn, the fabric whispers with charms that preserve warmth and provide protection from attacks_ )

The village girl sitting before her has hair of dusty straw, braided back into a bun. She wears a faded dress, though it was clean and neatly mended with fine stitches.

"Please, Madam Sorceress," the girl said, her eyes on the floor, "I need your help."

"What for, child?" Yennefer said, trailing her hand over the bottles and small amulets on her table. "Something to make your family's crops grow? A charm to captivate a sweetheart?"

"No." The girl's hands clenched against the fabric of her apron. "That is not—not what I have need for."

This was a surprise. Most of the requests from the village folk and townspeople were usually for such matters. Health, wealth, love, or vengeance. Small dreams and trifles, really, but Yennefer would think no less or no better of them for the asking.

She had wanted such things herself, once, a long long time ago.

Yennefer leaned back against her chair and spoke. "Why have you sought me, Liliana of Lyria?"

The girl looked up, her dark eyes staring straight at Yennefer. "It's my friend, Bianca. Her family sells cheese, and she helps run the shop most of the time. She's clever, and good with numbers." A pause, as Liliana seemed to be collecting her thoughts. "Lately, she told me there's been some trouble. There's this man..."

"A lover's tiff?" 

Yennefer hoped not. Those troubles were always such dull ones.

"No. No." Liliana shook her head, her voice steady and sure. "She has an understanding with the carpenter's boy, and their families have already been in talks of an engagement. This is a different one. This one is the son of a knight, or some such high position. He saw her in passing, on a market day last season. Bianca has always been reputed as a neighborhood beauty too, and well." Lilian stopped, fidgeted with a thread on her sleeve. "Bianca told me that the last few weeks when she's been around town, she thinks she's seen him following her. That boy doesn't live in these parts of Lyria, and—and—she's afraid."

"Isn't this something for her family to petition to a magistrate for? And you come to me, instead?"

"Please." Lilian stilled her hands, brought them up to clasp them together atop the table. A pleading gesture. "Please. We've known each other since we were children, and our families were neighbors. She's as close as a sister to me."

Yennefer's shoulders stiffened at those words.

_"Take her," a cold voice says, and Yennefer is twisting in the witch's grip, sobbing so fiercely her breaths turn into gasps, her mother's face looking away from her with shame or fear, her gaggle of siblings, brothers and sisters, standing unmoving by the door, staring at her woodenly—_

"Very well. Do you have coin?"

Liliana untied a bag from her dress, pushed it across the table surface. "It's all I have right now. Twelve marks."

Yennefer touched the bag, her face still expressionless.

"If it's—if it's not enough," Liliana said, hesitantly, "I also know how to spin, and have a good hand with cloth. I could—add in some new fabric as well, or sew up any new piece of clothing you may require."

(You are Yennefer of Vengerberg and your heart is iron and blood. A sharp, hungry thing, empty of everything but your own intent.)

Yennefer closed her fingers around the money. "This will be enough for the first portion of payment. We can discuss the rest after the request is fulfilled. Now tell me, what do you know about the fellow's name—?"

Liliana brings the folded cloak to Yennefer some weeks later, woven from the wool of her family's sheep. Elsewhere in Lyria, its inhabitants discussed the harvest of grain, grumbled about the cold winds, and laughed over rumors of a knight's nephew who had fled the city, babbling all the while about being chased by a pack of ghostly wolves.

**Author's Note:**

> +title from the poem ['becoming the villainess' by jeanine hall gailey](https://vegaofthelyre.tumblr.com/post/24143754053/becoming-the-villainess-by-jeannine-hall-gailey)  
> +granted, yennefer is not really a villainess as such, the title was really picked more for the vibe
> 
> +the bugs that yennefer receives in one of the scenes was meant to be a reference to the [polish cochineal ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_cochineal); however, to the best of my knowledge it was only ever used for dyeing cloth and there was a different kind of bug used for cosmetics  
> +this thing had been sitting in my file for like three months???? ended up writing it when i was thinking 'i'm not sure i actually like yennefer as a character' until i ran across a post that posited that yennefer was meant to be a female byronic hero and then something in my brain went 'hm. interesting.'
> 
> you can also find me here:  
> [tumblr](https://qserasera.tumblr.com/) || [twitter](https://twitter.com/mallory_madder)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] the way her heart has become a stone](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24993577) by [Chantress](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chantress/pseuds/Chantress)




End file.
